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“You can grow old with me at my house forever and ever,” Daphne said.
Helen rolled her eyes.
“And me,” Alice said. “You can be our, like, companion. Like we’re old Victorian ladies, and you can bring us tea and hold our umbrellas just right so our fair wrinkled skin doesn’t get burnt and you can never have sex again.”
“Not ever again,” Daphne said.
“But we’ll have dogs. Lots of dogs,” Alice said.
“We don’t need any more dogs,” Helen said. All of them had dogs now, and it was like wild kingdom when the families all got together. In this strange space between having children out of the house and waiting for grandkids—with all of this love and nurturing to spare—her aunts and uncles had gotten dogs.
Is that going to happen to me? she wondered. Me and Bea and ten cats?
Shit. Maybe I should be looking at the dating websites.
“What about that Billy Sorenson from the fire station?” Alice asked. “He so obviously has a thing for you.”
“You are the second person to bring up Billy Sorenson! Is he enlisting all of you to get me out on a date?”
“No. I think it’s just in the air. You two are young. Attractive. He’s a firefighter, for crying out loud. You should be dating.”
“He’s, like, twenty-five,” Helen said.
“And you’re eighty?”
“No,” she protested and shrugged. “But…you know what I mean.”
Billy was a nice guy. And hot. But Billy had grown up around here a cheerful golden boy. He’d played lacrosse in high school and he was voted Homecoming King and everyone had something nice to say about him. There wasn’t an edge on him anywhere. There was no darkness. No hint of some heartbreak.
And she couldn’t imagine what she would even say to the guy.
“Fair,” Alice said and poured more wine into Daphne’s glass. “But…you are thinking about it, right?”
“About what?”
“Sex?”
“Oh my god, Aunt Alice!”
“I’m serious. You’re too young. Too beautiful. Too smart to be our companion. Some guy out there needs you. And your vagina needs some love.”
“My…vagina is fine.”
“You can’t even say it,” Alice said, pointing at her with a wooden spoon. “That’s how distanced you are from your vagina, you’ve forgotten how to say the word. Say it with me, VA—”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Helen breathed. “Look. My vagina is fine. No one needs me. And Bea adores me. When did you get so dramatic, Alice?”
“She’s always been dramatic,” Daphne said. “But she’s right. Aren’t you lonely?”
“I am surrounded by my family 24/7. Who has time to be lonely?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Fine! Yes!” The words popped out of her, unexamined and unrealized. But they were true. “I am lonely.”
“Really?” Alice asked, eyes wide.
“This is a weird thing to be happy about,” Helen said.
“It’s the first step!” Daphne cried and then Alice cheered.
“Stop. Please stop, or you’ll bring in—”
As if cued, in walked Uncle Gabe. He was trying out facial hair these days and had a real mountain-man-in-pressed-khakis kind of vibe. It was weird, if you asked Helen, but the way Alice stroked his cheeks would indicate her approval. Alice and Gabe had been married before, but had broken up after years of infertility heartbreak. But when Gabe opened the inn he needed a chef, and Alice had needed a fresh start after her restaurant failed. Neither of them had expected to get back together. And they’d really never expected to have kids. And now Stella was about to graduate high school. And their love had been a huge part of creating the magic of the Riverview Inn.
“What are we cheering about?” Gabe asked, his arm around his wife, his smile for all of them.
“Sports,” Alice lied. Gabe laughed.
“Yeah? Which one?”
Alice stroked his beard again. “I don’t know. The one with the net?”
“All right,” he said. “Keep your secrets. The grill is ready. Are you ready for me to put the pork on?”
“No,” Alice said. “We need fifteen more minutes, considering our gnocchi crew is moving slow.” Gabe grabbed a wine glass from the tray at the end of the counter and flipped it over for his wife to fill. Alice didn’t drink, but it was never a problem when other people did on Sunday night. She’d struggled with alcoholism when she and Gabe split up the first time, and she always said she valued what she had too much to risk it for a drink.
Gabe lifted the bottle toward Helen. “Do you want a glass?”
“Sure,” she said.
Maybe I should let Billy take me out for a drink. We don’t have to fall in love. Or even have a second drink.
But there had to be a first date after Evan at some point.
With a belly full of delicious gnocchi and salad, she drove Bea home from the inn to the farm. Those twenty minutes on the familiar highway felt good again. Felt like home again. She pulled in under the apple tree and turned the car off.
